First, start blogging

Finding a job that suits you.HikingArtist.com via Flickr

Nearly 11 months ago I started this blog with the main aim to start writing because all I’d done was keep a diary about our son for over two years. By that time, I was ready to look for a new challenge.

After writing a couple of posts I started sharing them on Twitter. Then I went a bit crazy and got accounts for nearly everything I could hook up to my blog so I could automate sharing in different places. Blogging and writing are popular with my fellow bloggers on WordPress.com, but the best results in terms of sharing and replies to my ‘business’ posts have been on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Share to business contacts through LinkedIn

LinkedIn is where you connect with your co-workers, people you’ve done projects with, former colleagues… There are several aspects to sharing your blog posts on LinkedIn:

Plain sharing: every time you publish a new blog post, it’ll appear in your LinkedIn updates. Because most people on LinkedIn haven’t succumbed to a Twitter-inspired sharing craze just yet, your posts are more likely to be seen than on Twitter. (mute the really obnoxious people).

On-profile visibility: you need to show the updates section on your profile page. That means checking a box. When people connect with you they’ll check your profile page. Make sure your updates are near the top of your profile.

Sharing your posts in relevant groups (I still haven’t tried it).

What LinkedIn updates can do for you and your blog

Even if your colleagues know about your blog, they may never see it except when you show it to them. LinkedIn lets you share your blog posts so your connections can see them in their home stream. When they notice, that can lead to unexpected conversations. In my case:

one colleague told me she enjoyed reading my ‘updates’. I was puzzled at first until it dawned on me that she must mean my blog posts on LinkedIn. We’d been connected there a couple of months. It’s nice to find that the people you work with appreciate what you write.

Another colleague had noticed my blog through LinkedIn and wanted me on her team for content management…

To cut the story short, on Monday I’ll start managing content together with that second colleague. For that reason I may not be able to publish two new blog posts on ContentRambler every week for the next few months. But we’ll see 🙂

All I wanted to do was write… 11 months of blogging have given me a lot of reactions on and off-blog, and a new job that involves writing. What will blogging do for you?